Adoption Procedures

The Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act has been enforced since May 30th 2012. And according to the Act, all the adoption cases in Taiwan shall consider the national adopter as priority. Besides, all the international adoption cases shall be matched via the legal adoption matching services agency. Except almost the same peer within six degrees of kinship of relatives and five degrees of kinship of relatives by marriage, or one of the couple adopts the other party’s children.

Taiwan organizations which provide international adoption service work with foreign agency or governmental authority instead of individuals. If you are interested in adopting children from Taiwan, please first seek the service of international adoption agency or governmental authority in the country of your residence.

Adoption in Taiwan
In Taiwan, adoption is an agreement between biological parents/legal guardians and
the adoptive parents in relation to the well-being of the child to be adopted. The
adoption process is completed by obtaining a civil ruling and certificate of civil
ruling from the Court and registering the adoption at the local Household Registration
Office. The articles of law relating to adoption in Taiwan are found in the Civil
Code Part IV Family, Articles 1072-1083 and Children & Youth Welfare Act, Articles
14-17.
Eligibility Criteria for Adopters

A single parent may (has the rights to) adopt children in Taiwan.

Where a married person adopts a child, he or she must do so jointly with his/herspouse.

The adoptive parent must be at least twenty years older than the person being adopted.
If the married couple wants to adopt, one should be at least twenty years older
and another one is sixteen years older than the person being adopted.

Documentary Requirements for Court

Home study： One original copy and a Chinese version of home study report from the
social welfare agencies/authority

Power of Attorney (if the adoptive parents will not appear in court hearing).

A certificate or a certified letter that states the family is approved as adopters
according to the adoption laws of the family’s country of residence. The certificate
or the certified letter should be issued by the authority, social welfare department
or consul.

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Adoption contract and all of the original documents of applicants should be notarized
by Taiwan consul / representative located in applicant’s country of residence and
must be translated into Chinese.

Court Procedure Regarding Adoption

There are three major steps in the court procedure regarding adoption:

The first step is to file the adoption case at the local district court. The court
hearing date may be scheduled one to two months later.

During this waiting period, the court will assign the social worker from local bureau
of the social affairs or a designated agency to conduct a home visit to biological
family, child and prospective adoptive parent(s). If the adoptive parents do not
reside in Taiwan, social worker will conduct investigation report and make recommendation
to court base on adopter’s home study instead. Civil ruling will be issued one to
two months after the hearing date and a certificate of civil ruling will be issued
ten days after the civil ruling is received by all parties.

The third step is to submit original civil ruling, certificate of civil ruling,
and power of attorney, and register the adoption at household registration office
in Taiwan.

Passport and Immigrant Visa for the Child

Persons wishing to adopt a child in Taiwan should follow through and complete legal
adoption procedures in Taiwan and obtain a Taiwan travel document for child. Doing
otherwise and take child out of Taiwan is illegal. It is recommended that biological
parent(s) apply for child’s passport before adoption, because it is usually faster.
Foreign adopters applying for child’s VISA after adoption sometimes face problem
concerning different spellings of child’s name in English due to various romanization
systems. It may prolong the adoption process. Adoptive parent(s) can apply for child’s
Taiwan passport at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by submitting the household certificate,
and, if the adoptive parent(s) are not going to appear, the guardian's copies of
passport and power of attorney.